There seems to be a lot of "what if?" retro-clones coming out lately (I know the proper term isn't retro-clone, as everyone likes to point out to me, but I don't care). My personal favorite is Adventures Dark & Deep, what would have happened if Gary Gygax had stayed at TSR. There's also Dragons At Dawn (an Arnesonian OD&D clone), and the failed Chamions of ZED (an OD&D before OD&D game). The usefulness of such projects is debatable, although I find Adventures Dark & Deep to be a wonderful compilation of AD&D 1E material regardless of "what if?" scenario.
There is one question though that I've come up with, and is sort of what Arcane Adventures has been: What if TSR hadn't tried to keep Arneson's name out of D&D? More importantly, what AD&D (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) hadn't deviated so much from OD&D (Original Dungeons & Dragons). It's my understanding that there were a number of rules, style, and name changes made to AD&D to ensure that Arneson couldn't claim any rights to it. What if AD&D had simply been a compilation of the OD&D material up to that point?
Now that this isn't necessarily a productive area of discussion, because most people either like OD&D/Basic or AD&D. My recent foray into other games has brought me full circle back to OD&D personally, so I understand why there is the split. Personally I love both games, but I do understand they are quite different, and capture a different feel. However I do see a lot of interchangeable material, and useful supplemental ideas that could be added to OD&D. In fact a lot of people, including myself, do that already. Games like Basic Fantasy (another one of my favorite games) have already published some of those concepts, like separating race and class. There's even a ton of supplemental material on the site that adds material like extra classes and such.
I didn't really go over how I came to my conclusions in my last post, because I want to stop getting into those discussions, as they aren't very productive. I will say this: AD&D is a great game in it's own right. Adding a ton of supplemental material, or cutting a bunch out, as much as I want to that is, makes it a very different game. AD&D is very easy to houserule, however I want to do more than just houserule it. I'll be happy to keep playing with my AD&D material (including Adventures Dark & Deep) whenever I'm in the mood for it, or when I want a complete game with all of those wonderful options.
I do like to houserule, and add extra material to my games, that aren't necessarily purely D&D or even compatible with AD&D. Which is why I'm going to start making digest-sized fanzines (which I may or may not release). Therefore my obvious choice is OD&D/Basic, however now I'm left with the question OD&D or Basic? Personally I love OD&D, it's aesthetic, and the version I play, Swords & Wizardry is written so well as to capture that feel perfectly. Though the first and most basic houserules and supplements I would add, essentially make it Basic: differing hit dice, variable damage, the thief class, etc...
In any case I'm now asking myself the question; what would Advanced Basic Dungeons & Dragons look like? Whether I share my findings, or simply blog about it, is still up in the air. What's great is that both Swords & Wizardry and Basic Fantasy would let me heavily house rule their main documents, and then legally publish the results.
I don't think I'll be quite so dedicated to my idea as Greyhawk Grognard (the creator of Adventures Dark & Deep). He spent many a year reading articles, forum posts, quotes, and source material from Gary Gygax to get a real philosophical and grounded idea of what Gygax's revision would look like. I doubt I'll have the time, or motivation to dedicate myself to that. However I I'll definitely be looking at the various versions of Basic, Arneson's work, and the original supplements. Any material from Advanced D&D that isn't directly conflicting with OD&D or Basic, I'll probably use too.
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